What are you doing to intentionally grow?

I became a big John Maxwell fan when I first read his book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You.  I had never read anything that impacted my leadership as much as that book.  Since then I have bought most of Maxwell's books, but none of them had the same impact on me as that first book until I read his latest, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential.  Unless I am very surprised it will be the important book I will have read this year.

In my earlier years I was like many people who assume that we grow as we age.  That simply isn't true.  Getting older just happens.  If you stay on this side of the grass long enough you will get older.  However, growth requires intentionality.  We have to take certain steps throughout our lives if we want to grow as persons and as leaders.  We need to take those steps every single day of our lives if we want that growth to be persistant.  Maxwell would take that even further and say these are not merely steps we need to take; they are laws we must follow if we want to reach our potential.

For me, this book did two things.  It opened my eyes to some things I had not really considered before when thinking about growth.  For instance, he writes about the law of the rubber band.  A rubber band is only useful when it is stretched.  I have a pile of rubber bands in one desk drawer that are completely useless unless they are stretched over something I want to keep together.  As I read that chapter I realized that I am very similar to those rubber bands.  I am at my best when I am stretched, and the primary times that I have seen growth occur in my life is when I've been stretched by situations and challenges.  If I want growth to occur in my life I must put myself in situations where I will be stretched.

The second thing this book did was remind me of things I already knew but sometimes forget to practice.  The law of the mirror is one of those things.  The way we see ourselves has a huge impact on what we are able to accomplish and on our ability to grow.  Many years ago when I coached Little League baseball I used to tell my team to never let a mistake hurt you twice.  We would often see a player make an error on the field and in the next inning strike out because he was still thinking of that error.  Sadly, there are many times in my life when I forgot to take my own advice.  I would preach a poor sermon and beat myself up throughout the next week because of it.  I would make a poor business decision that cost my business needed profits and feel like a complete failure.  In this chapter Maxwell provides ten steps that will improve our self-image.  I know everyone of them, but I found it so helpful to be reminded of them.  Growth will occur as we implement these steps in our lives.

I just finished this book a couple of weeks ago and plan to read it at least once more before the year is out.  I can't give a book a higher recommendation than that.  I may be approaching retirement age, but that doesn't mean I want to stop growing as a person and as a leader.  I hope you feel the same way.  Too many people are counting on you for you to stop growing now.